Posted
by
samzenpus
on Wednesday October 06, 2010 @12:33PM
from the back-to-the-beginning dept.

RandyDownes writes "And you thought the Droid X's kill switch was bad. HTC and T-Mobile's new G2 can detect when it's been rooted and responds by reinstalling the factory OS. This seems like a violation of the Apache license Android is licensed under and is especially ironic given Eric Schmidt's recent statement about not requiring carriers to give consumers the option to install Google's own version of the OS. Schmidt called it a violation of the principles of open source."Update: 10/06 17:47 GMT by S: As readers have noted, the G2 is not from Motorola. Here's a better source, and here's the XDA Developers thread discussing the issue.

Oh, the war will be won. It will be one by the carriers and hardware manufacturers and lost by the consumers. The market for people who want control of the software on their devices is simply too small.

The funny thing is that HTC seems to be one of the cooler manufacturers, in terms of allowing customization and root; they're typically haven't taken the same bold killswitch action that Motorola has done. This move on the G2 is surprising to me.

I have an EVO (HTC Supersonic) right now. I didn't plan on rooting it as I was somewhat happy with the entire phone, but what really started to bug me is that I couldn't delete the default Sprint apps. Then with the 2.2 Froyo update, I didn't have the option to u

...battle for control over our mobile devices. Fuck it, I don't care anymore. The war certainly won't be won in its current direction. It needs fundamental change at the consumer level.

This is why I recently bought a n900 after reviewing the current situation and comparing many devices with articles, reviews, asking friends or colleagues about their models. Albeit with a (around) 450 € sticker price it was not cheep. But out of the box I do have to worry about changing carriers (if I do), needing to get root (if I want to), app prices, and app licensing.

Oh did I mention it has been out for little over a year and is stable and has a really cool community constantly building open source apps ?

What is different from Maemo than Android, iOS, or WinPhone 7 (when released)? The OS vendors aren't the ones controlling the prices, the developers are.

I think he was talking about "apt-get install packagename" type applications. In that world, the price is pretty much set in stone by the license, usually GPL, and for end-users is effectively zero no matter how you measure it.

What is different from Maemo than Android, iOS, or WinPhone 7 (when released)?

Maemo - at least on the N900 - has a different target audience as the other ones you named. It is a full-blown Linux - apt-get and all. Many existing Linux applications can be run on it, with the hardware being the limiting factor. The downside is that the interface across applications is far from having the polish of iOS or even Android, and that there is little in terms of your 'typical' iPhone apps. The upside is that the platform is truly open and immensely powerful. You can ssh into your phone, you can

Dell (of all people) had a sale -- and I got one of these at a nice discount. I've been quite pleased with it -- and have barely begun to scrape the surface in terms of what it can do (and the software that is available).

I have an HTC Magic, my next phone will be MeeGo/Maemo based though. (assuming they don't remove features such as root access in MeeGo)I will wait for the N9 though, the N900 is better than my current phone but it seems a waste to get one now that N9 is on the horizon.

I bought the N900 as soon as it was released in the US. I had been waiting for it since I got my N810, which I instantly fell in love with. The N900 was great out of the box, but over the next 4 months I became increasingly disappointed with it. I even changed from AT&T to TMobile because I wanted 3G data. The Maemo platform is still incredibly immature as anything other than a hobbyist/developer platform. As a smartphone it's nearly useless. And Nokia did nothing but pay lip service to the platform aft

IgnoramusMaximus's post suggested that 3G support was limited to Europe, but in fact the N900 has been rolled out all over the world (India, the Gulf Arab states, Japan, Hong Kong...) and 3G works fine. Just because a phone doesn't work ideally in North America doesn't mean that it fails to work in "most of the world".

Consumers are buying unlocked phones. I am definitely not buying any more contract phones and I could not care less what is exclusive and what is not. Android did with that. There is enough of the same from all carriers and unlocked as well so no need to fight for that coveted spot in the queue in front of the shop when a new gadget comes out.

An average smartphone costs 230£ to 400£ for most models. That is well within what most people can afford nowdays and most car

The GSM Galaxy S models (i9000, Captivate, and Vibrant) are easily rootable, quad-band, and are slated to definitely be getting Froyo in the next month or so (leaked builds are already widely available). Technologically, they're the best Android phones on the market. They're not perfect (no hardware keyboard, GPS is a bit flaky, and only the i9000 has properly-functioning HSUPA right now) but they're overall very solid models.

This is disingenuous. I have a Droid-X. Rooted it right out of the box and installed software that Verizon would prefer I didn't use (Wi-Fi tethering). Recently upgraded it to Froyo (Android 2.2) and was still able to root it.

The Droid-X doesn't have a "kill switch" against rooting. It has a kill switch against installing a new OS. If you want to install a different ROM image than the Droid-X isn't for you. If you simply want to customize the Android OS to do whatever the hell you want then there is nothing in place to stop you. Root it, uninstall all the bloatware, run wi-fi tethering to your hearts content.... it will do all of those things.

Actually it only has a "kill switch" against unsigned/boot partitions. The/system partition is only signature checked after it is updated via the stock recovery partition. If you update things (or 100% replace)/system/ via something like Koush's Boot Strap Recovery that check never occurs. This is how some groups are working on getting AOSP based Android builds up and going for testing on the Droid X. As long as they can get it to work with the official/boot/ they are fine.

Or at least the software platform did. Developers (paid ones) were just allowed to go off and do what they liked, so you got people spending six months rewriting the onscreen keyboard when half the time the sound subsystem didn't work (kind of important on a phone) along with a variety of other massive problems. Oh yeah, and the two or three full-stack rewrites they seemed to have going at any one time.

If you really want to have an "open" device, you should have supported the various open hardware platforms that eventually failed because of your lack of support.

You can't really complain that you don't have choices when you made no effort to support the good choices that you had.

Oh my fucking god man, whaaa whaa whaa. I really try to support open source, but THIS is the fucking reason why open source isn't more widely supported. Everyone developing for them says they're the best thing ever, and then when users don't adopt, the developers blame the USERS.

WTF? Did you not ever take a business class in your life? Consumers do what they want, and you either provide them with what they want or you get left behind. If you don't see it that way, you will also get left behind. If consumers don't pick up your device, its YOUR FAULT.

If the CEO of a poorly performing company came out and said "We lost money this year because consumers refuse to support us." that CEO would get fucking FIRED.

This mentality upsets me so much, because every year I download Ubuntu and give it a shot. I *want* it to be awesome and I want to switch. But every time I have some menial little issue that ends up taking a week to sort out, and I give up. Then, when I mention that experience to people who strongly support linux, they say it was my fault. That "All you have to do it edit.asoundrc. If you won't RTFM we can't help you.", as if you just click "edit" and its done. No one on the forums could tell me *what* I needed to do in the editor (and I searched, and asked nicely - I know how to ask things on forums) and I *tried* reading the manual, and reading everything else I could find, but all I was trying to do was get my media center to properly mix the audio for 5.1 channel surround! In windows you just check a box. In linux, I spent a week on it and then gave up.

As long as people keep developing crap software and then blaming it on the user, they will never succeed. That said, I am still excited for Ubuntu 10.10. Just like I was for 7.10,8.4,8.10,9.4,9.10, and 10.4. Lets hope *this* time its money...

#152037 +(3036)- [X]<dm> I discovered that you'd never get an answer to a problem from Linux Gurus by asking. You have to troll in order for someone to help you with a Linux problem.<dm> For example, I didn't know how to find files by contents and the man pages were way too confusing. What did I do? I knew from experience that if I just asked, I'd be told to read the man pages even though it was too hard for me.<dm> Instead, I did what works. Trolling. By stating that Linux sucked because it was so hard to find a file compared to Windows, I got every self-described Linux Guru around the world coming to my aid. They gave me examples after examples of different ways to do it. All this in order to prove to everyone that Linux was better.* ion has quit IRC (Ping timeout)<dm> brings a tear to my eye...:') so true..<dm> So if you're starting out Linux, I advise you to use the same method as I did to get help. Start the sentence with "Linux is gay because it can't do XXX like Windows can". You will have PhDs running to tell you how to solve your problems.<dm> this person must be a kindred spirit of mine

If you could actually AFFORD the phone you buy a unlocked one.. Google tried to sell you one, none of you cheap bastards bought one.

The G2 is also available for $500 from T-Mobile free and clear with no contract. It will be interesting to see what justification T-Mobile comes out with for locking down the bootloader on the G2 when it is bought outright like this.

I don't think companies should give up on this model (selling and supporting an unsubsidized phone). Google failed, but my understanding is they didn't have the right support infrastructure (and the phone with the carriers available had too many initial problems requiring support). But a better phone and organized support could still succeed in the US (elsewhere is easier I hear). But there needs to be better promotion of how much it will cost you assuming you don't break your phone in the first 2 years

I bought LG GT540 because that was the only android phone I could afford. Do I complain that there is no flashing support? Do I complain that it is only 1.6 Android? Do I complain that it sometimes defaults to Russian character set?No! Because I made the decision to buy this piece of shit.Yes, if I could afford it, I would have bought a dev phone from Google. Then I would have top-spec phone with all the freedoms. But whining that my 200€ phone does not give the features and

The Nexus One only was available for T-Mobile (not exactly the biggest carrier state-side) and AT&T, which was going up against the extremely popular iDevices.

Lack of consumer demand didn't kill the device- the boardroom politics did. Why does AT&T love the iPhone? It's surely not the infrastructure problems they gained with the mass of users all wanting to watch videos of dogs skateboarding on Youtube. It's the fact that they have a highly desirable device that you c

The main reason no-one bought one was they did the math ; if you are sufficiently organised to set a calendar event to remind you to change your phone plan at the end of your contract, it's cheaper to get the phone on a contract. If you actually use the capacity of the larger plans (as opposed to just going for the more expensive plan to get a phone subsidy), then it's DEFINITELY cheaper to get the phone with a contract.

If they offered an equivalent talk + data plan, cheaper over 2 years than the cost of a

This seems like a violation of the Apache license Android is licensed under

Yes, it "seems" like a violation of the Apache license because you don't like it (i don't either for that matter), but please explain to me how it is an actual violation of that license. Have you ever read the thing?

Section 3, paragraph 11, about a third of the way down, "Don't be evil."

Indeed. For anyone under misapprehsion that Google does not have the propensity for evil, or is not already evil, this should remove any remaining doubt.

If the issue is not resolved satisfactorily, and by that I mean by Google and not by the usual ever-vigilant outside developers, I will simply return the G2 I bought yesterday. I was perfectly happy with my nonsmart Nokia music phone, which has the additional advantages that it fits comfortably in my pocket and runs for several days without a recharge.

For anyone under misapprehsion that Google does not have the propensity for evil, or is not already evil, this should remove any remaining doubt.

Because a third party added a nasty feature to the third party's phone, without Google's knowledge or consent, and once public the Google CEO makes a statement of being against it? Yeah, proof of being evil right there

...but now I feel bad for even supporting Motorola/HTC. We have a Droid and an Eris, which are fine, but the G2 and D2 are going in the wrong direction. I will not renew with either of these companies if they continue with these retarded shenanigans.

I'm coming to the same conclusion. I love my Eris but only after I put 2.2 on it. One of the requirements for my next phone (if it's android, which 3 months of go would have been certain) will be root. My Eris also runs Debian so it has usefulness beyond that of a phone if I need it.

This is why I'd like some type of thing akin to a seal and a printed notice, "warranty void if seal opened". The N1 had this when flipping on OEM unlock.

Perhaps this is the best compromise. To keep Joe Sixpack from getting exploited by a Dancing Bunnies exploit, what would be ideal is to require ADB to be installed, a command issued from the PC that would pop up a lengthy, scary as hell to uneducated users that they are about to cross into Mordor, and that they can easily back out right now with no harm done, or proceed and void their warranty. Some warning dialog that even someone who is drunk, baked, high, coked up, and tripping has a good chance of understanding. User clicks "proceed", fastboot is opened, signature checking is relaxed to allow any keys to sign recovery, boot, and OS ROMS, ro.secure is set to 0,/bin/su is enabled and a.apk file for the confirmation part of su installed.

Of course, there would be a method to put this all back and shut the barn door if the user wants to have the phone back for service, similar to a DFU reinstall on iOS devices, but that will be buried in the fine print. This way, if someone does hose up their phone, it isn't hard to get them back to a known good OS level.

To prevent me from owning my own hardware is intrinsically evil. If your claim was true they would offer a simple, press Z on the hardware keyboard while you boot to not have the OS replaced or something.

The only way to 'get root' on many of these devices is to attach a cable to the phone, invoke a special command to get a root shell, and only then can things be mucked with, by using a unix command shell.

How can malware get on the phone if 99% of the users will be only using it through the phone's on-screen menu system? On Android, arn't all apps sandboxed + running as non-root? If an app can break out of this process model, arn't there more serious problems @ stake here?

So now layering some sort of digital safeguard is now the answer? Common how many protections have to be shot down before you realize that once it leaves the store people will mess with the device. Do these guys truly believe they can follow you home to force you to use their glass and plastic the way their marketing department intended? Well I guess they are clinging to that hope but this backup will just get hacked or jailbroken or whatever once they get access to the memory area that houses the backup

When I rooted my Droid X, all it took was a replacement of the Busybox executable to give me all the tools I needed. It isn't Maemo, but I have pretty much everything but gpg and mutt available [1].

An iPhone just doesn't require just an exploit to UID 0, it requires one to get out of the BSD jail() with root. It also requires the jailbreak to install a complete userland including an install system (dpkg), shells, an app (Cydia) to manage everything. Even worse, the jailbroken Mobile Terminal app is barely usable, and has to be hunted down from a repo, as the one that comes as default from Cydia does not work on iOS 4.

This doesn't say that the iPhone is bad; it means that a jailbreak on this device is a lot harder to do elegantly than rooting an Android phone.

[1]: Even in the days of Web applications aplenty, there is no faster mail reader than mutt on a decently responsive system, especially if the spool file is local.

So you're saying that I can progressively pull out of the market until I am forced to opt out of technology in general because I don't agree to being abused by OEMs?

Yes, that's exactly right. You don't have any right to the technology. I would love to have a magical flying unicorn, but nobody offers such a thing. I don't get pissed off when Breeders tell me "Nope, sorry. Don't carry them". You have the freedom to make any purchasing decision you like. At the same time manufacturers have the right to decide what products they sell. We can't force them to offer an open phone that meets our wants.

Crappy analogy. Locked in a cage you are not free to do anything. Sold a phone that doesn't do quite what you'd like leaves you free to do anything else, including throwing it away or hacking it.

You *chose* to buy the damn phone. If you now find that it doesn't do what you want (but does do as the vendor promised) throw it in the trash. If it doesn't do what the vendor promised demand your money back. "Rights" != "Entitlements"

The problem is that no Android phone since the Nexus 1 has allowed rooting. Motorola has told modders and developers to go elsewhere explicitly. HTC has always given out source, drivers, and access to dumps so people could easily mod their devices. However because of pressure from the cellular companies, they had to cave in and start making their devices modder hostile.

It would be nice to have a phone that is unlocked and friendly to modders. Problem is that the N1 crashed and burned, and no carrier wou

So, I'll take the karma hit and ask - to all the people that rant and rave about how closed and proprietary Apple is and how wonderful Android is, how does this sit within your vision of things? I thought the entire appeal of Android was that it was your phone and you could put what you wanted on it yet this is far from the first example of another Android manufacturer exerting (rather extreme, in my opinion) control over what you can and cannot put on the device.

I thought the entire appeal of Android was that it was your phone and you could put what you wanted on it

You can. Google exerts no control over the Android marketplace. They sell apps that compete with their own Google apps (would Apple ever allow this?), apps that compete with the default carrier apps and apps that even allow you to violate the terms of service you agreed to with Verizon/AT&T/etc.

Tango, Skype, loads of web browsers, (all compete with apples apps) The 3 camera app's i have, the weather channel, I even have a DivX file player that side loads.avi files
it was much easier to get skype on an iOS device before yesterday, than a non verizon android phone.
so yeah, you couldn't be more wrong, and your marked +4.
typical

and how long until verizon locks you out of the android market and substitutes the v-cast market instead? soon. the only reason the carrier relinquished a little control to google, allowing their phones to make google money through search, is because they had nothing to compete with the iphone.

now that they have android, watch the noose tighten. carriers just can't stop trying to squeeze a dime out of every aspect of the mobile web. they'll never allow themselves to be relegated to being a pipe.

of course, they don't get that they really don't have android. google sold it to them like "look, it's open source, how much control can we really exert over you?". ha ha. thousands of google employees that are infinitely familiar with the source code means more than they think.

Not really. A drivers license (and the requirements for one) vary state to state and are simply government stating that they grant you the permission to drive on their roads.

Contrast that to this phone.

The software license being pushed as a contract between two independant entities, in this case, the owner of the software, and the prospective user of the software. The hardware is owned by you. If the license is refused by you, it is implicit t

The problem is that companies like Google and HTC bend to the will of the carriers. They openly permit garbage on these phones. The irony here is that they're decimating their own brands this way.

The carriers themselves have this desperate hope that consumers will accept their walled garden as willingly as they accept they accept Apple's. The problem is that their garden is overrun with weeds and has an overflowing outhouse sitting right there as a centerpiece. People tolerate, even embrace Apple's practices because there's a good level of quality and consistency. A lot of money and effort is invested in maintaining this quality. These other carriers, however, cut corners everywhere they can and put no effort whatsoever into maintaining quality. All they want to do is keep consumers locked in forcibly. They're deluded into believing they can offer something competitive with Apple's app store. They might drive away that consumer at some point, but for now they've got them trapped.

This is one of the consequences of having separate companies develop the OS and the device. Beyond the problem of countless variations of the same basic thing, a user experience that isn't seamlessly integrated these companies simply don't have the leverage Apple enjoys.

This is not to say that I believe that the iPhone reflects some wonderland of technology but simply that the iPhone and the app store have become the benchmark.

The geniuses and gurus are at it with the analysis and dismantling. It's actually fun for them. So when they are done, there will be a package to copy to internal storage followed by a special reboot and an "update" process. All they have to do is disable whatever it is that is checking for root and disable or deceive it in some way. After that, it's business as usual.

There's no doubt that the illegal distribution of software on the android platform is pretty high. And we could make arguments about why

There's no doubt that the illegal distribution of software on the android platform is pretty high. And we could make arguments about why that is forever using all the same old arguments and excuses we always have. The fact that it is easier on Android phones than others (is that true? I am not so sure about that) is a matter for consideration. But that, in and of itself, is not the reason carriers need to get into the mix by making it less useful for users.

You misunderstand. You can install "pirated", not-downloaded-from-the-Market software on ANY stock android phone. Pirating software is not made any easier by rooting. Go grab a 2GB torrent of every damn Android app out there, install on your stock phone. Not a problem.

This is all about hardware control. I have a T-Mobile MyTouch 3G, and if I had stayed stock, I'd STILL be on Android 1.6, which is fucking ANCIENT. I'm running 2.2.1, can do all kinds of actually useful stuff:

Modify/etc/hosts to block ads? CheckOver/underclock processor on demand, both increasing performance AND battery life? CheckControl LEDs and other lights (different colors for txt/email/etc notifications, blink patterns)? CheckMultitouch? CheckOptimized kernel images that run wicked fast? CheckSwap space on SD card to get some more RAM space? CheckComplete bit-for-bit backup of the internal flash memory so I can do a "bare metal" restore? Check

This phone fucking FLIES compared to the stock T-Mobile software, which is slooooow as hell. And THAT'S why I rooted.

... oops, I guess that "jailbreak" is evil, while "root" is good. Among Android phone purchasers.

Among Android customers (i.e. manufacturers and carriers), "rooting" is evil (along with "upgrading" and "non-bloatware").

[Android fans are just now realizing that Google's customers are the manufacturers and carriers, not end users. You may not agree with Apple's conception of an end user, and their conception may not fit you at all, but at least they are conceiving of the end user as their customer, not manufa

I hear ya! I'm still using a Moto RAZR from 5 years ago and AT&T is seriously pissed that I haven't upgraded. I got an iPod Touch, but only for widescreen mini-movies, the App Store is a worthless joke. A smart phone cannot make one smart. Although, I would like the stock Android OS auto-installed on my iPod should it get "rooted". That would be fine with me.

I can't shift into drive in my vehicle unless I have my foot on the brake. By your logic I should do without all the good reasons to own a vehicle and walk everywhere instead.

If I were to take out the blowtorch and modify my vehicle to bypass that interlock (perhaps it makes a better race car, tractor, electric generator power source, etc. that way), the company that I buy gas from would not remotely wipe out my modified creation without permission.

I was like you. I always had the simplest phone that was good at making calls and sometimes carried with me a PDA (a Dell X51v) if I wanted to watch a movie, have gps etc or a linux netbook if I needed to keep connected with the machines at the office.Then the N900 came out. I always have with me a phone, a movie player, a gps and a linux machine. In addition, even with the netbook I never had the ability to SSH over 3G (I would have needed more than my simple phone for that, tether it etc), and I can do in

Agreed. What's up with all these evil hackers who think that just because you buy a physical device, that somehow gives you the right to own it? What about the corporation that made it? Why should *they* have to give up control rights, just because someone else bought it from them?

An "unbricking" feature could have that as a side effect though - if the new OS didn't do whatever the "unbricker" is looking for to indicate it booted ok.

Though any such implementation that doesn't involve pushing a physical "reset device" button while turning it on (and having that button be one of those PITA to press watch setting style things) is playing with fire.